WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.707 I love this one comedian named George Carlin. 00:00:02.707 --> 00:00:05.547 A lot of you know him. 00:00:05.547 --> 00:00:10.619 One of the teachings that I learned from his comedy was that rights don't really exist. 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:11.509 It's a fabrication. 00:00:11.899 --> 00:00:14.013 And we understand 00:00:14.013 --> 00:00:17.550 that "rights" comes from bodies like nation-states 00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:21.087 and international law. 00:00:21.087 --> 00:00:23.255 Bodies like the UN. 00:00:23.255 --> 00:00:25.709 The idea of responsibilities supercedes that. 00:00:25.709 --> 00:00:28.163 It goes back in time to ancestral times. 00:00:28.163 --> 00:00:34.037 And in our language, we don't have a word for "rights." We have words for "responsibility." 00:00:34.757 --> 00:00:40.377 Indigenous laws, responsibilities, are... 00:00:40.708 --> 00:00:43.828 take what you need and leave the rest. 00:00:43.908 --> 00:00:50.948 That means you only take what you need and you operate with your laws, 00:00:50.968 --> 00:00:54.988 creating products that are built right the first time. 00:00:54.988 --> 00:01:00.067 Foods that are acknowledged and consumed fully. 00:01:00.067 --> 00:01:02.025 You don't take more than you need. 00:01:02.048 --> 00:01:04.091 It's not new. 00:01:04.176 --> 00:01:09.185 What's new is remembering what those protocols were and what they can be today. 00:01:09.185 --> 00:01:16.531 Especially in the face of contemporary and future proposals by this capitalist society 00:01:16.531 --> 00:01:19.514 to access what they call "resources." 00:01:19.954 --> 00:01:21.793 These are not resources. 00:01:21.793 --> 00:01:25.176 This is a life force. A life force that we have relationships to. 00:01:25.176 --> 00:01:27.362 We don't own it. 00:01:27.362 --> 00:01:31.648 We don't own the rivers. We don't own the salmon. 00:01:31.648 --> 00:01:34.885 We have relationships with these worlds. 00:01:34.885 --> 00:01:38.406 And our laws are our responsibilities. 00:01:38.406 --> 00:01:44.523 In our language ******** means our responsibilities. Our ways. 00:01:44.554 --> 00:01:48.030 So the way we harvest salmon is our living law. 00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:55.067 The action of properly harvesting salmon to respect their world is the living law. 00:01:55.422 --> 00:02:01.441 You know, an invading force does not bestow the rights on people when they keep them oppressed. 00:02:01.441 --> 00:02:05.729 The rights are only a chance for them to, kind of, come out of that oppressive state once in a while 00:02:05.729 --> 00:02:10.483 to kind of feel a little bit empowered then disappear back under that oppressive veil. 00:02:10.505 --> 00:02:14.175 Responsibilities take us out of that veil. 00:02:14.198 --> 00:02:17.592 They give us a chance to walk freely on our lands. 00:02:17.592 --> 00:02:20.135 And we take our responsibilities very serious. 00:02:20.135 --> 00:02:22.227 That's the freedom that we experience. 00:02:22.227 --> 00:02:24.068 The air that we breathe isn't based on our rights, 00:02:24.068 --> 00:02:28.212 it's based on our ancestral responsibilities, which go back thousands of years. 00:02:28.212 --> 00:02:32.920 And the rights are something that only goes back to 1982 here, in Canada. 00:02:32.920 --> 00:02:38.056 But the United Nations has declared it as "Rights for Indigenous Peoples." 00:02:38.396 --> 00:02:42.069 And being a hierarchical body 00:02:42.069 --> 00:02:44.054 upholding nation states 00:02:44.054 --> 00:02:46.449 and nation states uphold capitalist ideals. 00:02:46.449 --> 00:02:51.567 And capitalist ideals depends upon infinite resources 00:02:51.567 --> 00:02:54.665 infinite growth in a finite world. 00:02:56.035 --> 00:03:02.472 And that means all of us as human beings can protect that finite world 00:03:02.472 --> 00:03:05.517 by asserting our responsibilities collectively around the world. 00:03:05.517 --> 00:03:07.677 Going back to humble ways of living.